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It’s difficult to determine which takes precedence in this supernatural thriller – the creepiness or the creakiness. Set in a crumbling old mansion on the English countryside, the film provides the house with its own monologues consisting of mysterious knocking, thumping, ringing, banging, and lots of creaking.

The story concerns Dr. Faraday (Domhnall Gleeson), a caring country doctor, who has maintained a lifelong fascination for Hundreds House and its wealthy inhabitants, the Ayres family. His mother worked there as a maid in his youth, and she later took on multiple jobs to support his desire for a medical education. She died an early death from overwork, and the good doctor now seeks a family of his own.

The Mystery of Hundreds Hall

It’s 1948, and Dr. Faraday is now working with an established doctor in the area and receives a call from someone at Hundreds Hall regarding an ailing young maid (Liv Hill) who suffers from an unknown malady. While there, he encounters the Ayres family again, the secretive mother (Charlotte Rampling), the shell-shocked and horribly disfigured war veteran son, Roderick (Will Poulter), and the chronically depressed grown daughter, Caroline (Ruth Wilson).

While treating the patient and later returning to try electro-stimulation on Roderick’s burns, and eventually to court Caroline (who appears to prefer women to men), Dr. Faraday has frequent flashbacks recounting his one visit to Hundreds Hall for a festive party in the mansion’s glorious heyday back in 1919. He remembers another Ayres daughter being at the party, a pretty young girl who died while still a child. He also relives his other experiences of that day, including eating with other maids in the kitchen and breaking off a stone acorn from one of the elaborate wall fixtures.

A Slow-Moving Thriller

Now creaky, dilapidated, and possibly haunted, the sprawling three story mansion still represents an elusive lifestyle to Dr. Faraday. By proposing marriage to Caroline, he thinks he can help her family with their health problems, ease his own loneliness, and finally gain full access to the house he has always admired. Surrounded by secrets, lies, delusions, dysfunction, and supernatural forces, what could possibly go wrong with his plans?

This slow-moving thriller (based on the Gothic novel of the same name by Sarah Waters) offers no concrete explanations, but presents an interesting twist on the typical ghost story and haunted house scenario. The oppressive atmosphere within the house grows steadily as the movie progresses, shifting from uncomfortable at the beginning to terrifying at the end. The sound effects team must have thoroughly enjoyed themselves giving the house its own distinctive “voice.”

As in the 2017 period piece, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Gleeson delivers a solid performance as a man struggling with inner turmoil while attempting to retain an outer calm. As a man of science, he’s the last to admit that something supernatural is going on at Hundreds Hall. The mystery isn’t revealed until the final moments of the film, but even then – like any good horror story – questions and doubts will remain in the mind of the viewer.

The Little Stranger

In 1948, a young country doctor attends to a strange family living in an old mansion that appears to be haunted.